Broken Speakers
by Mocha-mono
Summary: Lara Steilsson can talk to ghosts? OK. She's the now considered the "freak" and is always picked on at her school? Sure. But getting attached to the ghost boy that haunts the school auditorium? Not cool! Fem!Iceland x Ghost!Hong Kong.
1. A Certain Theater Student

**((I'm back! With ****_another _****new fic!**

**I know, I know. I'm just full of ideas this week. Everything will be updated eventually, I promise! I'm working on it, I swear!**

**Anyway, so this fic follows supernatural stuff and Fem!Iceland x Hong Kong. This should be fun, non?**

**Hetalia isn't mine!))**

_This is the dumbest day of my life._

Lara Steilsson could not help but think that as she stepped into the classroom that day.

_Theatre class. Yick._

It wasn't that Lara hated moviemaking or plays, but more like she hated being forced to interact with more people that were sure to hate her sooner or later. She had never had much luck with friends.

"Good morning, everyone!" The drama teacher, Mr. Vargas, almost twirled into the room. He put his lesson planner on the desk and smiled brightly. "How is everybody doing today? I hope it's good, because we have a new student today!"

The class all looked at Lara. She shrank in her seat.

"Come on up, _bella," _Mr. Vargas said encouragingly. "Just come up, say hi and tell us something about yourself, and that's it."

Lara sighed. She stood up and walked half-heartedly to the front of the room, facing the many curious and judging faces of her new classmates.

"M-my name is Lara Steilsson," she said, "And I...can talk to ghosts."

Silence.

The entire class burst out laughing.

Lara drew back. "It's true, I swear!" The class only laughed harder. "_Stop laughing at me!"_

A small piece of paper hit the side of her head. "Freak!"

Lara was frozen in place as Mr. Vargas tried to calm his class. She knew these kids wouldn't understand her, not like anybody else really did.

What Lara had said wasn't a joke. She really could see and converse with people that no longer lived. She didn't really mind—the ghosts she had met were nice enough people and they didn't really bother her on purpose, so she never wanted to really rid herself of it. The thing that frustrated her so much was that nobody _understood _nor _wanted to understand _that what she talked about was real. They either thought she was crazy or lying.

Lara sat back down in her seat, feeling jaded through the rest of the class.

**H-e-t-a-l-i-a!**

The day didn't get better from there.

Everyone was staring at her all day. Some people looked awed by her, others pointed and sneered at her. Lara ignored them, or at least tried to; she had gotten looks like this at her last school.

Things had come to point, however, when Lara went to lunch.

"Hey, ghost whisperer!"

_Just ignore them, Lara._

"Hellooooo! I'm talking to you!"

She grit her teeth and turned around to face a white-haired boy with glinting red eyes.

"So! I hear you can talk to ghosts, huh?" he asked meanly.

"Yes," Lara replied curtly.

"I don't believe you," the boy said. "Prove it. But first, listen to this awesome little myth. You're in theatre class, right?" When she nodded, he continued, "There once was a certain theatre student that went here about ten, fifteen years ago. This kid was the stage manager for the backstage crew, and he was really awesome at it. During one of the school plays-_Hamlet, _I think-he was up on the top platform fixing the stagelight positions and stuff. The platform's ropes broke, he fell off-SPLAT!" Lara winced, making the boy grin. "He died right there, right then."

"And he became a ghost, right?" Lara asked, a little bit unnerved.

"Well, that's what the myth says," the boy answered. "Since you're in theatre and you can-or at least, you _say _you can-talk to ghosts, I challenge you to go into the school theater and talk to him."

"No!" Lara protested. "It's rude and stupid to just walk up and disturb ghosts all willy-nilly!"

"Oh yeah?" the boy asked, leaning in and glaring straight into Lara's violet eyes. "Are you chicken? Or maybe you're some unawesome liar?"

Lara flinched at that. All she wanted was for people to stop teasing her, for God's sake! Ugh. "Fine!" she yelled. "I'll go and meet this stupid ghost." She glared at him, turned on her heel and began to walk away.

"Have fun, ghost whisperer!" the boy called, laughing.

Lara huffed.

**H-e-t-a-l-i-a!**

"Mr. Vargas?"

Her theatre teacher turned around, eyebrows raised even though his eyes were always closed. "Hmm?"

"Uh...so the fall play is coming up soon, right? _The Music Man?" _she asked, trying to sound as casual as she could.

"Uh-huh," he replied. "Did you want to audition?"

"No," Lara said hastily. "I was wondering if I could assist the stage manager."

"Uh...about that…" Mr. Vargas said sheepishly. "Our stage manager moved back to Egypt, and we're trying to find someone to replace him before we set up roles."

Lara gulped.

"Buuut, you can be the _new _manager if you're up to it!" Mr. Vargas offered. "You'll have to say after school and work extra hard to keep the play together, like me, but it can be really fun, too!"

Lara thought about that for a minute. She didn't want to further tarnish her public image at the moment, and if there really was a ghost, she could at least have full access to him at all times. Plus, she wouldn't be in a hurry to get home-her older sister would probably have her stupid boyfriend Mathias over. Ick.

"I'll take it," she said.

"Great!" Mr. Vargas grinned. "Stop by tomorrow for all the play notes and things. First thing, OK?" He turned to walk away.

"Wait!" Lara called. "Can I go explore the theater now?"

"Of course," the teacher replied. "The doors are always open. Ciao!"

He walked off, leaving a slightly stunned Lara in the hallway.

She sighed.

**H-e-t-a-l-i-a!**

The theater was huge.

It was an enormous dark room with red-carpeted floors, and full rows of slightly battered red seats. The stage had wood flooring and slightly billowing black curtains, and the large white projection screen in the back.

Lara didn't know why, but she loved it.

She quietly, cautiously walked the front row, eyes scanning each corner.

She closed her eyes, listening.

Yes. There was a presence here.

"Spirit…?" she whispered. "I don't mean to intrude...I just wanted to see if you're there...can you hear me…?"

"Like, why are you here?"

She whipped around.

There he was. The famous ghost.

**((*plays creepy music***

**Yeah, it's just Hong Kong. It didn't take me long to figure out a good way for him to die (hey, accidents n' stuff), despite me loving his character to death. Dunno.**

**Anyway, this might be a rather long fic! Let's see what happens!**

**Review! Or Hong Kong-nii-chan will blow up your house! ^_^ (just kidding!))**


	2. A Ghost's Story

**((FINALLY! I DID IT!**

**OK, so now we discuss Hong Kong's past life here. **

**To the guest reviewer: I had no idea that's how Icelandic names worked! Thank you for enlightening me. To be honest, I used the name "Steilsson" because that's one of the surnames chosen by Himaruya when picking human names for Iceland. (he might have meant Steinsson, now that I think on it.) If you really want me to, I can change the names later so it looks more correct. ^_^**

**Enjoy the fic, everyone! Hetalia isn't mine!))**

The boy certainly looked like a ghost. He was partly transparent and was very foggy, like an image on a fuzzy TV screen. He had choppy neck-length hair and a wore a tattered red Chinese shirt and brown pants. His eyes were dead and his skin was paper white.

"Are you going to answer me?" he asked simply.

"Spirit…?" Lara's voice sounded hollow.

The ghost chuckled. "Please don't call me that. Call me Kaoru, it _is _my name. Or at least it was, before I became a pancake on the school stage." He looked grim.

Lara relaxed slightly. "Kaoru...uh...I'm Lara," she said, straightening. "And if you don't mind, why are you haunting the theater? Why can't you just move on to the next place?"

"Like, why should I tell you?" Kaoru asked, reclining in midair. "Aren't you this year's freak?"

Lara drew back, face reddening. "OK! First, how do you know how people pick on me all the time? Second, you take that back, China kid!"

"You're not the first person to spend any actual time in here, ya know," Kaoru replied nonchalantly. "People commonly come in here to gossip and stuff. I hear a lot of things."

Lara sighed. "Can you just answer my first question? Why are you here?"

Kaoru smirked. He floated over and sat on the edge of the stage. "OK, fine. I'll give the usual ghost spiel, talk about my death and how and why I'm here." He vanished, but a voice still travelled through the room. "It's like, the most interesting thing ever, but whatever."

Lara went over to the stage and hoisted herself onto the edge. "OK, start talking."

Kaoru had reappeared, this time casually swinging on the broken top platform. Lara noticed that this must have been the platform that killed him.

"OK, lessee…" Kaoru said, looking thoughtful. "Where should I start?"

"How about before you died?"

"Fair enough. I was...15, I think. I was in theatre club, trying to become an actor or director because of a Jackie Chan phase I was going through. I really was one of the better stage managers, since most of the plays that had my help went smoothly. I was kinda popular, I guess." He sat on the top of the platform, not sliding off. "Now, when I died...I remember that waaaaay better than I want to. It was November, about 15 years ago. I was doing my usual, keeping everything in place. My teacher asked me to reposition the 7th stagelight, so I boarded this platform to do it. But this is a really old theater, see, so I didn't notice the ropes fraying. So it snapped."

Lara imagined Kaoru 15 years ago, fixing he stagelight, not seeing the rope. She could only imagine his expression when he realized he was falling.

Kaoru must have known what she was thinking. "I know, disturbing, huh?"

"Very," Lara echoed, gulping. "So, after that…?"

"Paramedics, people screaming, teachers fainting, parents going crazy, you get the picture. It didn't take them long to realize I was gone already." He swung down and hovered there. "As for me, though, it was weird. One minute, I was slamming down on the ground, next minute, I'm standing right next to myself, feeling really confused and weirded out and horrified."

"I can see that," said Lara.

"I only realized I couldn't leave the theatre when I actually tried to run after my friends and tell them I was there. Yeah, I was in a little denial for a while, until I just said, "Screw it, I'm a ghost. I'm here."" He went silent, lost in his thoughts. "That's it."

"I don't see why you think that story's uninteresting," Lara said flatly. "That's an incredible story. Scary, weird, but really incredible."

"Is that a compliment, freaky girl?"

Lara's eye twitched. "Yet, I'm not entirely sure if I sympathize yet."

"S'okay. I don't get a lot of seers."

Oh, if only he were actually solid. Lara could've punched him. "You're pretty smartmouthed for a ghost."

"I get that a lot, too. Even when I was alive."

"You're weird."

"Tell me something I don't know."

Lara gave up. "Fine, if you'll act that way, I'm leaving."

"But aren't you the new stage manager? This won't be the last time you see me." Kaoru was starting to enjoy giving the girl a hard time.

"You shut up!" Lara yelled, walking out of the theater. She closed the door behind her, sighing. It was probably a good thing he wasn't able to leave the theater.

She started heading down the hall into the golden autumn afternoon, hands in her sweater pockets. Darn him. Maybe it was a mistake to be the stage manager. He would probably tease her so she wouldn't be able to get anything done, and then Mr. Vargas would get mad at her. (OK, maybe not. Mr. Vargas did not simply get mad at somebody.)

She watched the leaves tumble onto the ground, thinking of the ghost's tale all the way back to her house.

**((Poor Hong Kong. **

**We'll start focusing on Lara's attempt to direct things next time. It'll be fun, da? ^J^**

**Later!))**


End file.
